How to form a hackathon team that ships

Same three people, three first prizes in one year: Changethon at IIT Roorkee (February), Product Genesis at CSJMU (April), BYTEBATTLE by MeetKats (June). Raman Shukla, Saksham Gupta and me. Then a 48-hour build in December that didn't win — same team, and still the right one. This deck is about the team, not the code: the three roles that actually matter in a 24–48 hour build, why friends beat strangers with better resumes, how to divide the work so nobody is blocked, and the one conversation to have before you register. I also build tools.scult.in — 15 free tools, 1,200+ prompts and a 50,000-skill library, free for anyone, no signup.